1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to telephone communications between inmates of correctional facilities and persons located outside of the facilities such as family and friends of the inmates. More particularly, the present invention relates to telephone communications methods and systems in which a person located outside of a correctional facility prepays for the cost of calls made from an inmate of the facility to the person. The present invention further relates to telephone communications methods and systems in which a person located outside of a correctional facility establishes a prepaid account from which funds are paid to a telephone service provider for the cost of calls made from an inmate of the facility to the person.
2. Background Art
Inmates of correctional facilities such as prisons typically do not have their own telephone services. Inmates rely on telephone services made available by the facilities in order to make telephone calls to persons such as family and friends located outside of the facilities. Inmates typically are limited with respect to when, how long, with whom, etc., they may make telephone calls. For example, inmates may be required to provide facilities with a list of persons (such as family and friends) that they would like to be able to call. In turn, the facilities review and approve each person and associated telephone number on the lists before the inmates are authorized to be able to establish telephone communications with these persons. Requiring such approved lists is to prevent inmates from making unauthorized telephone calls to persons such as victims, judges, law enforcement, etc.
Inmates generally lack access to funds with which to pay for telephone calls made by the inmates to persons outside of the facilities (i.e., the called parties). Prepaid calling cards and the like are generally not available to inmates. Thus, a problem associated with inmates making telephone calls to called parties is arranging payment to the telephone service provider for the calling costs.
A solution to this problem is for the inmates to make collect calls to the called parties. In this event, the telephone service provider subsequently bills the called parties for the costs of the calls. However, a problem for the called parties is that the costs of collect calls are typically much higher than the costs of ordinary calls. A further problem for both the telephone service provider and the called parties is that called parties in this market segment usually lack the resources for paying the costs of collect calls or do not have proper credit ratings to establish credit accounts with the telephone service provider. Thus, the telephone service provider causes the telephones of many called parties to be collect call restricted.
Collect calls are not enabled to be made to telephones having telephone numbers that are collect call restricted. In this case, the called parties having collect call restricted telephones do not have the option of designating calls from inmates as collect calls to be paid for by the called parties. As a result, if an inmate attempts to place a collect call from prison to a telephone number that is collect call restricted, then the call is not completed. In this case, the called party may be contacted and advised of the requirement to establish a prepaid account in order to receive calls from the inmate. The called party can then fund the prepaid account by the use of a credit/debit card or a check. However, again, a problem is that called parties in this market segment often do not have credit cards, checking accounts, etc., and therefore must use other non-popular payment methods (such as money orders and wire transfers) in order to fund their prepaid accounts. Such non-popular payment methods require more time and effort by the called parties to use to establish and fund their prepaid accounts and have relatively high transaction fees.